Pope Francis

In preparation for my participation in a USCCB sponsored symposium for the fifth anniversary of Pope Francis’ encyclical letter Laudato Si, I reread the famous and controversial document with some care. Many of the themes that struck me five years ago stood out again, but on this reading I was…

In this new video commentary, I reflect on my “ad limina” visit with Pope Francis on January 27. It would be impossible to summarize what turned out to be a three-hour conversation with the Holy Father, but there were three dominant themes that emerged.

I write these words from the Eternal City of Rome, whither I’ve come with my brother bishops from Region 11 (California, Nevada, and Hawaii) for our ad limina visit. This is a regular and canonically required trip to pray at the limina apostolorum (the threshold of the Apostles), the tombs…

The new and much-ballyhooed Netflix film The Two Popes should, by rights, be called The One Pope, for it presents a fairly nuanced, textured, and sympathetic portrait of Jorge Mario Bergoglio (Pope Francis) and a complete caricature of Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI). This imbalance fatally undermines the movie, whose…

A recent informal statement from Pope Francis about tradition not being a “return to the ashes” during an in-flight press conference has gotten some attention. There are two poles to avoid here: a kind of liberalism that stresses a mindless openness to the culture, and a kind of “conservatism of the museum” that desperately clings to the past. The one that helps us to see through the dilemma is someone that will be canonized by Pope Francis in a few months—namely, John Henry Newman.

Today, Bishop Barron offered the following intervention at the Vatican during the 2018 Synod on Young People, the Faith, and Vocational Discernment. For more Synod content from Bishop Barron, visit WordFromRome.com, where you'll find behind-the-scenes videos, interviews, commentaries, and more.

@TheAnchoress @BishopBarron @WordOnFire These relentlessly exciting unboxing rituals on social media - are catalysts for the unexpected and profound worldwide 🌎 Biblical enthusiasm ... so desperately needed ... let us pray for the Gospels to be healing balm for so much woundedness 🙏 in so many hearts 💕. +JMJ